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The report said the accident happened when the four trucks, which were carrying a total of 17 people and thousands of litters of fuel, were traveling on the road with their headlights turned off to avoid detection by police.

The trucks crashed and caught fire on the road, which links Zahedan to Mirjaveh near the Pakistan border about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) southeast of Tehran, the report said. The four other people inside the trucks were taken to a local hospital with severe injuries.

Fuel smuggling from Iran to neighboring countries is common because the country has one of the lowest fuel prices in the region, 38 cents per gallon.

Iran also has one of the worst records for road accidents in the world, with about 26,000 people dying annually. The toll is blamed on unsafe vehicles, disregard for traffic rules and inadequate emergency services.

Iran said on Tuesday that a man convicted of adultery had been stoned to death in a village in northwestern Iran, the first time it has confirmed such an execution in five years.

"This case has been recently executed in the village that was mentioned," judiary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told reporters about the stoning of Jafar Kiani in the village of Aghche Kand in Qazvin province.

"The verdict was implemented because it was definitive," Jamshidi said, implying it was approved by the supreme court, which must uphold all execution orders.

Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is still theoretically punishable by stoning although in late 2002, judiciary head Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi had issued a directive suspending the practice.

In June, the Fars news agency reported that the judiciary had halted the stoning of a man and a woman in Qazvin province, believed to be the same man who has now been executed.

The judiciary had up until now vehemently denied any stonings since 2002, although rights activists and press reports have on occasion claimed that such verdicts have been carried out.

Under the punishment of stoning, a male convict is buried up to his waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female offender is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.

The spectators and officials attending the public execution start throwing stones and rocks at the convict, who is theoretically released if he is able to free himself.

A group of women's rights activists headed by feminist lawyer Shadi Sadr have been campaigning to have the sentence wholly removed from the statute books.

The stoning brings to at least 110 the number of executions carried out in the Islamic republic so far this year. At least 177 people were executed in 2006, according to Amnesty International.

TEHRAN, Iran: A man convicted of adultery was stoned to death last week in a village in northern Iran, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said Tuesday, the first time in years that the country has confirmed such an execution.

Jafar Kiani was stoned to death Thursday in Aghchekand, 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Tehran, said spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi.

Death sentences are carried out in Iran after they are upheld by the Supreme Court. Under Iran's Islamic law, adultery is punishable by stoning.

Jamshidi did not elaborate on how the stoning was carried out. Under Islamic rulings, a man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies.

International human rights groups have long criticized stoning in Iran as a "cruel and barbaric" punishment.

"The execution has apparently gone ahead despite Iran's moratorium on execution by stoning, a moratorium that had been in effect since 2002," said Jose Diaz of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"Stoning is in clear violation of international law," Diaz said in Geneva. He said Arbour considered stoning to be a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited under an international treaty that Iran has signed.

Stoere was "deeply upset" that the death penalty had been carried out and called stoning an "inhumane and barbaric method of punishment," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Frode Andersen.

The reported execution came two weeks after international pressure, including protests from Norway, caused Iranian officials to delay carrying out the sentence against Kiani and his female companion, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, who also was sentenced to death by stoning. It was not known if a date had been set for her execution.

Norway's embassy in Teheran will try to arrange for representatives of the international community to visit Ebrahimi in prison, the Norwegian foreign ministry said.

The couple had reportedly been imprisoned for 11 years.

Stoning was widely imposed in the early years after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought hard-line clerics to power. But in recent years, it has seldom been applied, although the government rarely confirms when it carries out stoning sentences.

There is no official report of the last time Iran stoned someone to death, but there were unconfirmed media reports that a couple was stoned in 2006 in the northeastern town of Mashhad.

Women's rights activists headed by feminist lawyer Shadi Sadr have been campaigning to have the sentence removed from Iran's statutes.

Iran's reformist legislators have demanded an end to death by stoning as a punishment for adultery, but opposition from hard-line clerics sidelined their efforts.

The above men who watched an execution in Tehran, 2005 are not considered as Iranians. Islamist occupiers of Iran said that a man convicted of adultery had been stoned to death in a village in northwestern Iran, the first time it has confirmed such an execution in five years.(AFP/ISNA/File)

Last edited by cyrus on Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:06 am; edited 1 time in total

United Nations, July 11 (PTI): The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has slammed Iran for stoning to death a man on charges of adultery last week and asked it not to execute his companion or any other person in the "same unlawful manner."

The Iranian government said yesterday that a man was executed by stoning for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days for similar offences.

"I am extremely concerned that despite a stated moratorium of the Iranian Government on execution by stoning, this execution has gone ahead," Louise Arbour said in a statement.

"Stoning is in clear violation of international law, which also limits the death penalty to only the most serious, violent crimes."

Jafar Kiani was reportedly stoned to death on July 5 in Takestan, in Iran's Ghazvin Province.

Kiani, and his companion, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, had reportedly been in prison for more than 11 years accused of adultery. The couple was originally scheduled to be killed by stoning on June 21, but that execution was stayed.

Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states in article 6 that "in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes."

Article 7 of the Covenant holds that, "no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

Herald Tribune wrote:

Islamist Occupiers Of Iran (Tazi) begins executions for adultery and other violations

TEHRAN: The Iranian government confirmed Tuesday that a man was executed by stoning last week for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days on morality violations.

A judiciary spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, told reporters on Tuesday that a death sentence by stoning had been carried out last week near the city of Takestan, west of Tehran, despite an order by the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, not to permit such executions.

"The verdict was final, and so it was carried out for the man but not for the woman," the ISNA news agency quoted Jamshidi as saying.

He said the 20 additional executions were for such things as "rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality." Most executions in Iran are hangings, often in public and at the scenes of the alleged crimes.

The police arrested about 1,000 people in May during a so-called morality crackdown. Jamshidi said 15 more men were being tried on similar charges and could receive death sentences.

daily newspaper Etemad Melli reported Monday that Jaffar Kiani, 47, who had been convicted of adultery, was executed by stoning on Thursday in the cemetery of a small village near Takestan. "Villagers said the sentence was carried out by the local judge and authorities," the newspaper reported.

Kiani and his partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, 43, who has two children, were scheduled to die on June 21, but the execution was put off by Ayatollah Shahroudi.

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has once again called in Iran’s Ambassador to Norway, Abdol Reza Faraji Rad, to protest against the stoning of Jafar Kiani in Iran.

Jafar Kiani is reported to have been executed by stoning outside the city of Takestan on 5 July. Mr Kiani was sentenced to death for having an extramarital affair with Mokarrameh Ebrahimi.

- I am shocked that the stoning has been carried out, and condemn execution by stoning in the strongest terms. It is a completely inhuman and barbaric means of punishment, Stoere said.

During the meeting with the Iranian Ambassador, it was emphasised that Norway is concerned that Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, the mother of the couple’s two children, will suffer the same fate. “Norway, together with other countries, urges the Iranian authorities most strongly to prevent the second stoning from being carried out,” underlined Mr Stoere.

The Norwegian Embassy in Teheran has been instructed to try to arrange for representatives of the international community to visit Ms Ebrahimi in prison.

- This latest stoning is one of a series of human rights violations by Iran and is in breach of Iran’s commitments under key UN conventions, said Mr Stoere. He added that Norway would continue its efforts to support human rights defenders in Iran and would maintain focus on human rights violations in the country.

- I urge Iran to comply with its own moratorium on stoning, and to amend Iranian law as soon as possible to prohibit this practice, said Mr Stoere.

Ambassador Faraji Rad was received by State Secretary Liv Monica Stubholt. During their meeting, Ms Stubholt expressed Norway’s strong condemnation of the death penalty in general and of stoning as a method of execution in particular.

The case of the couple from Takestan became known shortly before they were due to be stoned on 21 June. The couple’s children are currently in prison together with their mother. On 20 June, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere called in Iran’s Ambassador to protest against the planned execution.

In addition to the Kiani case, Ms Stubholt strongly deplored the recent prison sentences imposed on nine Iranian women human rights defenders, two of whom have also been condemned to flogging. Several of these women were involved in efforts to abolish stoning as a method of execution.

TEHRAN -- The Mafia Islamist Occupiers Of Iran (Incorrect Term Iranian government) confirmed Tuesday that a man was executed by stoning last week for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days on morality violations.

A judiciary spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, told reporters on Tuesday that a death sentence by stoning had been carried out last week near the city of Takestan, west of Tehran, despite an order by the chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, not to permit such executions.

“The verdict was final, and so it was carried out for the man but not for the woman,” the ISNA news agency quoted Mr. Jamshidi as saying.

He said the 20 additional executions were for such things as “rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality.” Most executions in Iran are hangings, often in public and at the scenes of the alleged crimes.

The police arrested about 1,000 people in May during a so-called morality crackdown. Mr. Jamshidi said 15 more men were being tried on similar charges and could receive death sentences.

The daily newspaper Etemad Melli reported Monday that Jaffar Kiani, 47, who had been convicted of adultery, was executed by stoning on Thursday in the cemetery of a small village near Takestan. “Villagers said the sentence was carried out by the local judge and authorities,” the newspaper reported.

Mr. Kiani and his partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, 43, who has two children, were scheduled to die on June 21, but the execution was put off by Ayatollah Shahroudi.

Islamist Occupiers Of Iran (tazi) is to defy western criticism over its human rights record by executing 20 sex offenders and violent criminals days after a convicted adulterer was stoned to death. Alireza Jamshidi, spokesman for the judiciary department, said 20 "thugs convicted of repeated rape, sodomy and assault and battery" would be hanged in the coming days once prosecutors had decided whether to execute them in public.

The condemned include at least 15 detained in May during a so-called "public morals" crackdown in poorer neighbourhoods of Tehran and other cities. Iran drew international condemnation following the internet distribution of photos showing some of the arrested being publicly paraded with toilet hygiene implements hung around their necks and bearing signs of having suffered severe beatings.

The anticipated executions are certain to intensify international pressure on Iran after the UN's human rights high commissioner, Louise Arbour, this week condemned the stoning last Thursday of Jafar Kiani in a village near Takistan, about 130 miles north-west of Tehran.

The punishment - carried out by several police officers and a judge - was an apparent snub to the judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who ordered the suspension of the stoning verdicts against Mr Kiani and his partner, Mokarameh Ebrahimi, last month after protests from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Stoning sentences - the standard punishment for adultery under Iran's Islamic law - have rarely been implemented since Mr Shahroudi ordered a moratorium in 2002.

However, Mr Jamshidi suggested Mr Kiani's sentence had been upheld on the order of higher authorities to send a signal to the west.

"We are not obeying pressure from human rights groups. We are obeying religious regulations and our own laws," he told Iranian journalists.

"Changing orders due to international pressure might not be very good for expediency. It is not the judge who recognises expediency - recognition of the national interest takes place elsewhere."

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed to resist western pressure on human rights and other issues, arguing that it is designed to overthrow Iran's Islamic system.

Iran this week announced it had launched new investigations into two detained Iranian-born US academics in open defiance of calls from the Bush administration for their release. Haleh Esfandiari and Ali Tajbakhsh are already charged with spying and trying to foment a US-backed "velvet revolution".

The authorities today ordered the filtering of the reformist news agency and website, ILNA, after complaints from allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr Ahmadinejad's supporters have accused sections of the media of trying to topple him in a "creeping coup".

An Iranian woman faces being stoned to death for having an affair with a married man. Mother- of- two Mokarrameh Ebrahimi has spent the last 11 years in jail for adultery with Jafar Kiani. Authorities in Tehran confirmed yesterday that Kiani had been executed last week. Now human rights groups fear 43-year-old Ebrahimi will suffer the same brutal fate.
A stoning pit, in which she will be buried up to her neck, has already been prepared for her. Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen, launching an "urgent" appeal, said: "To execute anyone by stoning is barbaric and disgraceful, to execute a woman for adultery in this cruel way simply beggars belief.

"It is imperative that Iran's head of judiciary takes immediate steps to stop the shameful stoning of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi while clarifying what has happened to her co-accused Jafar Kiani."

Tehran stopped official stonings in 2002 following international pressure. But judiciary spokesman Alireza

Jamshidi confirmed that Jafar Kiani had been killed on Thursday. "The verdict was implemented because it was definitive," he said.

Under Islamic law a male convict is buried up to the waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female is usually buried up to her neck. Spectators and officials then carry out the execution by hurling rocks and stones.

The stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not big enough to kill the person in just one or two strikes.

Kiani and Ebrahimi were jailed in 1996 and their two children, one aged 11, are believed to live in prison with their mother.

The Iranian women's group Stop Stoning Forever say the couple were living together when they were first detained, with reports suggesting Mokarrameh had been thrown out of the family home by her husband.

Both the man and woman have children from their previous marriages.

Stoning was widely used after the 1979 Islamic revolution propelled hard line clerics into power, but in

2002 they were replaced with other means of punishment. Despite this, human rights groups say a man and a woman were stoned to death in 2006 in north-east Iran, after being convicted of adultery and murdering the woman's husband.

The stoning of Jafa Kiani brings to at least 110 the number of executions - by public hanging - carried in Iran this year.

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada's top diplomat has condemend a recent stoning in Iran and called on Tehran to halt further executions of this kind, saying they violate civil rights.

"Canada strongly condemns the execution by stoning of Jafar Kiani in the village of Aqchekan in Qazvin province on July 5, 2007," Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement.

"We are deeply concerned by the possible imminent stoning of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, and urgently call upon Iranian authorities not to carry out the sentence," he added.

The minister said such punishment is "in clear violation" of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Additionally, he said, execution by stoning contravenes Iran's own moratorium on stoning introduced in 2002.

"Canada remains concerned with the human rights situation in Iran and calls upon the Government of Iran to live up to its commitments and obligations under domestic and international law," MacKay said.

Letter to President of France, the President of the United States of America, to the Chancellor of The Federal Republic of Germany, and to the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden as well as to the Secretary-General on the United Nations

The Honorable Nicolas Sarkozy August 5 , 2007

President of France

Excellency,

As the UN Special Rapporteur on Apartheid and racial discrimination in southern Africa, I could attest that it was indeed the international blockades of the 1970’s and 80’s that helped end the apartheid regime in South Africa and in South West Africa (Namibia).

I am sure you know that the situation of violations of human rights in Iran has been turning from bad to worse in the past several months. Three years ago the clerical regime succeeded to end the mission of Maurice Capithorne, the UN Special Rapporteur investigating and reporting on violations of human rights in Iran . By its wanton disregard of the UN Charter provisions on Human rights and provisions of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran remains a party, the regime of the clerics in Iran has been sarcastically poking its finger into the eyes of the world public opinion by horrendous disregard of its human rights international obligations. Article 6 (5) of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states “sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons bellow eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women”. Article 7 states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. On daily basis those and other articles of the Covenant and the Charter provisions on human rights are being grossly violated.

Please Sir/ Madame spare a few moments of your precious time and take a good look at the attached pictures , of every- day cruelties and molestations in the streets and in prisons of Iran. The law of vengeance, in Iran , allows cutting arms, fingers ,legs, plugging eyes, stoning individuals to death,.... Floggings and different types of torture are orders of the day in Police stations and in prisons. In the past weeks police brutalities in the streets and inside prisons has reached its peak. Those pictures are but a small sample of what is going on. The most vulnerable in all this are the youth and women of Iran .Isn’t this situation a travesty of respect for the basic tenants of international humanitarian law? In this day of instant flow of information what has happened to our human sensitivities. Why have we become passive observers of all these atrocities? What does it make of us to remain silent spectators in the face of such heinous crimes?

As demands by the youth, women, workers, teachers, writers, … for respect of their basic fundamental rights and freedoms has gained momentum, the regime’s response has turned more and more into increasing violence and suppression.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, often in such cases the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention were invoked by the Concert of Europe. On our feelings and bounds as members of a single human family, today, are we in fact going backward or forward? I know, situations in Darfur, in Somalia ,in.…are even worse. As you agree however, two wrongs don’t ever make a right. Iran ’s deplorable situation of horrendous violations of the basic rights and freedoms of the Iranian people today needs more world attention and world exposure. That’s the reason why I am addressing this urgent letter to you all today. I sincerely hope that it will have positive resonance and effect in the exercise of your functions. In anticipation of hearing from you.

Please accept Mr. President the assurances of my highest respects and considerations.

Professor Manouchehr Ganji

Secretary General

Organization for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for Iran

derafsh.org

____________________________

P.S. I am attaching for your review some recent heart breaking pictures which represent the pattern of cruelties being committed in Iran today.

· FYI this letter and enclosures has been sent to the President of the United States of America, to the Chancellor of The Federal Republic of Germany, to the President of France, and to the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden as well as to the Secretary-General on the United Nations.

Iranian people are expecting real serious actions by G8 officials NOW regarding Human Rights violations by Islamist Mafia Occupiers of Iran if the G8 is expecting to be friends of Iranian people in future.
The G8 and free world officials have ignored the Human Rights in Iran in past 28 years for short term financial gain and blood oil.

It is early dawn as seven young men are led to the gallows amid shouts of "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the greatest) from a crowd of bearded men as a handful of women, all in hijab, ululate to a high pitch. A few minutes later, the seven are hanged as a mullah shouts: "Alhamd li-Allah" (Praise be to Allah).

The scene was Wednesday in Mashad , Iran 's second most populous city, where a crackdown against "anti-Islam hooligans" has been under way for weeks.

The Mashad hangings, broadcast live on local television, are among a series of public executions ordered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month as part of a campaign to terrorize an increasingly restive population. Over the past six weeks, at least 118 people have been executed, including four who were stoned to death. According to Saeed Mortazavi, the chief Islamic prosecutor, at least 150 more people, including five women, are scheduled to be hanged or stoned to death in the coming weeks.

The latest wave of executions is the biggest Iran has suffered in the same time span since 1984, when thousands of opposition prisoners were shot on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini.

Not all executions take place in public. In the provinces of Kurdistan and Khuzestan, where ethnic Kurdish and Arab minorities are demanding greater rights, several activists have been put to death in secret, their families informed only days after the event.

The campaign of terror also includes targeted "disappearances" designed to neutralize trade union leaders, student activists, journalists and even mullahs opposed to the regime. According to the latest tally, more than 30 people have "disappeared" since the start of the new Iranian year on March 21. To intimidate the population, the authorities also have carried out mass arrests on spurious grounds.

According to Gen. Ismail Muqaddam, commander of the Islamic Police, a total of 430,000 men and women have been arrested on charges related to drug use since April. A further 4,209 men and women, mostly aged between 15 and 30, have been arrested for "hooliganism" in Tehran alone. The largest number of arrests, totaling almost a million men and women according to Mr. Muqaddam, were related to the enforcement of the new Islamic Dress Code, passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) in May 2006.

Most of those arrested, he says, spent a few hours, or at most a few days, in custody as "a warning." By last week, 40,000 were still in prison. Of these, 20,363 men and women are held on charges related to violating the Islamic Dress Code. According to the Deputy Chief of Police Gen. Hussein Zulfiqari, an additional 6,204 men and women are in prison on charges of "sexual proximity" without being married.

The wave of arrests has increased pressure on the nation's inadequate prison facilities. At a recent press conference in Tehran , the head of the National Prisons Service, Ali-Akbar Yassaqi, appealed for a moratorium on arrests. He said Iran 's official prisons could not house more than 50,000 prisoners simultaneously while the actual number of prisoners at any given time was above 150,000. Mr. Yassaqi also revealed that each year on average some 600,000 Iranians spend some time in one of the 130 official prisons.

Since Mr. Ahmadinejad ordered the crackdown, work on converting 41 official buildings to prisons has started, with contracts for 33 other prisons already signed. Nevertheless, Mr. Yassaqi believes that, with the annual prison population likely to top the million mark this year, even the new capacities created might prove insufficient.

There are, however, an unknown number of unofficial prisons as well, often controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or militias working for various powerful mullahs. Last week, human rights activists in Iran published details of a new prison in Souleh, northwest of Tehran , staffed by militants from the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah. According to the revelations, the Souleh prison is under the control of the "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi, and used for holding the regime's most "dangerous" political foes.

The regime especially fears the growing free trade union movement. In the past four months, free trade unionists have organized 12 major strikes and 47 demonstrations in various parts of the country. They showed their muscle on International Labor Day on May 1 when tens of thousands of workers marched in Tehran and 18 provincial capitals. The regime retaliated by arresting scores of trade unionists and expelling many others.

According to Rajab-Ali Shahsavari, leader of the Union of Contractual Workers, 25,795 unionists have been fired since April. He estimates that now over 1,000 workers are losing their jobs each day, as the regime intensifies its crackdown.

Worse still, the number of suspicious deaths among workers has risen to an all-time high. According to Deputy Labor Minister Ibrahim Nazari-Jalali, 1,047 workers have died in "work-related accidents" since April. Labor sources, however, point out that none of the accidents have been investigated and, in at least 13 cases, the workers who died may have been killed by goons hired by the regime.

The biggest purge of universities since Khomeini launched his "Islamic Cultural Revolution" in 1980 is also under way. Scores of student leaders have been arrested and more than 3,000 others expelled. Labeling the crackdown the "corrective movement," Mr. Ahmadinejad wants university textbooks rewritten to "cleanse them of Infidel trash," and to include "a rebuttal of Zionist-Crusader claims" about the Holocaust. Dozens of lecturers and faculty deans have been fired.

The nationwide crackdown is accompanied with efforts to cut Iranians off from sources of information outside the Islamic Republic. More than 4,000 Internet sites have been blocked, and more are added each day. The Ministry of Islamic Orientation has established a new blacklist of authors and book titles twice longer than what it was a year ago. Since April, some 30 newspapers and magazines have been shut and their offices raided. At least 17 journalists are in prison, two already sentenced to death by hanging.

The regime is trying to mobilize its shrinking base by claiming that the Islamic Republic is under threat from internal and external foes. It was in that context that the four Iranian-American hostages held in Tehran were forced to make televised "confessions" last month about alleged plots to foment a "velvet revolution."

Over 40 people have been arrested on charges of espionage since April, 20 in the southern city of Shiraz . Khomeinist paranoia reached a new peak last week when the authorities announced, through the Islamic Republic News Agency, the capture of four squirrels in the Western city of Kermanshah and claimed that the furry creatures had been fitted with "espionage devices" by the Americans in Iraq and smuggled into the Islamic Republic.

Mr. Ahmadinejad likes to pretend that he has no worries except "Infidel plots" related to the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions. The truth is that, faced with growing popular discontent, the Khomeinist clique is vulnerable and worried, extremely worried. The outside world would do well to carefully monitor and, whenever possible, support the Iranian people's fight against the fascist regime in Tehran .

Iran today is not only about atomic bombs and Iranian-American hostages. It is also about a growing popular movement that may help bring the nation out of the dangerous impasse created by the mullahs.

media rights group condemned Iran's closure of a leading pro-reform daily.
Reuters An international media rights group condemned Iran's closure of a leading pro-reform daily on Tuesday and criticised Tehran for creating "the Middle East's biggest prison for the press".
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said journalist Soheil Assefi had been detained on Aug. 4, following the detention of Masoud Bastani and Farshad Gorbanpour on July 31.

"His detention brings to 11 the number of journalists and cyber-dissidents held in Iran, which is the Middle East's biggest prison for the press," it said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the government, but it routinely dismisses allegations of rights violations.

Reporters without Borders said Bastani had been freed after several hours but that Gorbanpour was transferred to Tehran's Evin prison. It said they were working for a news Web site and pro-reform newspapers.

Rights groups and diplomats say Iran has launched a broad crackdown on dissenting voices in the country, which is under growing Western pressure over its disputed nuclear programme.

Iran says it allows free speech, but journalists say they have to tread carefully to avoid closure.

On Monday, the Sharq (East) newspaper was closed three months after it reappeared on news stands following a ban, its director said, the second publication critical of the government to be shut since July.

Iran's Press Supervisory Board banned it because of an interview with a poet who has written about homosexuality, the Fars News Agency said. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in Iran, which implements Islamic sharia law.

In early July, Iran shut down the pro-reform Ham Mihan (Compatriot) newspaper, two months after it was launched, on a legal technicality, according to its publisher.

Since 2000, Iran has closed more than 100 publications, accusing many of being "pawns of the West". Many subsequently reopened under different names.

Late last month, an Iranian judiciary spokesman said two Kurdish journalists had been sentenced to death for mounting an "armed struggle against the system". The spokesman said they had 20 days to appeal their verdicts.

"We are alarmed that this death sentence has been issued in a closed trial," Executive Director Joel Simon of the U.S-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in an Aug. 6 statement. "Iranian authorities must provide a fair and transparent legal process."

Iran has hanged 21 men in the latest of a series of executions that have been criticised by the EU and human rights groups, state media have reported.
Authorities executed 17 convicted drug smugglers in the north-eastern province Razavi Khorasan and four criminals in the southern city of Shiraz.

The hanging of the four men in Shiraz was reportedly watched by large crowds.

The number of executions in Iran has risen since July, when police launched a crackdown on "immoral behaviour".

Murder, rape, adultery, armed robbery, apostasy and drug smuggling are all punishable by death under the Islamic state's particular version of Sharia law.

A justice department official said that at least one criminal had been executed each week in Fars province, of which Shiraz is the capital, since the Iranian New Year on 21 March.

"This shows the efforts of the judiciary system in bringing about permanent social security and a serious confrontation with those people who are corrupt," Abdolnabi Najibi told the Fars news agency.

Amnesty International has protested against the rising number of executions in Iran this year, which had reached 124 before Wednesday's hangings.

The European Union has criticised Tehran's human rights record and expressed concern about the use of the death penalty.

Iran: Amnesty International appalled at the spiralling numbers of executions
Amnesty International is appalled at the reports of the execution of 21 people in Iran this morning, bringing the total number of executions recorded by the organization since the start of 2007 to 210.

This figure exceeds the 177 executions recorded in 2006, although the true figure for both years is likely to be higher. At least two child offenders were among those executed to date in 2007.

Amnesty International has catalogued scores of unfair trials in recent years and the organisation is concerned that many of those executed today faced unfair trials, and a failure to ensure that fair trial safeguards in death penalty cases are implemented in all cases without exemption or discrimination.

Under Iranian law, the accused has no right to legal representation prior to being formally charged. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has stated that all defendants facing the imposition of capital punishment must benefit from the services of a competent defence counsel at every stage of the proceedings

The scope of capital crimes in Iran remains extraordinarily large and includes vaguely worded charges, such as "enmity against God" (moharebeh ba Khoda) "being corrupt on earth" (mofsed fil arz), which refer, inter alia, to those accused of using firearms against the state; carrying out acts of robbery and to those who are considered to be carrying out espionage against the government. These crimes, including those of are adultery by married people, and same-sex sexual conduct, regarded as a crime against God and as such are not subject to pardon. Discretionary laws over which judges have the power to impose the death penalty include those relating to national security offences.

Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a state party states: "In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes..." The UN Human Rights Committee, the independent body that reviews states' implementation of this treaty has stated: "The Committee is of the opinion that the expression 'most serious crimes' must be read restrictively to mean that the death penalty should be a quite exceptional measure." Furthermore, Safeguard 1 of the Safeguards Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the Death Penalty, adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1984, states: "In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, capital punishment may be imposed only for the most serious crimes, it being understood that their scope should not go beyond intentional crimes, with lethal or other extremely grave consequences."

At least four of the executions today, in Shiraz, were carried out in public, although the UN Human Rights Committee has stated: "Public executions are... incompatible with human dignity." At least two of those executed in Shiraz appeared to have belonged to Iran's Baluchi minority. Amnesty International is concerned that members of Iran's Baluchi minority have formed a significant proportion of those executed in Iran.

Amnesty International continues to urge the Iranian authorities to stop executing child offenders; to implement all required safeguards in capital cases and to limit the scope of crimes punishable by death, as a first step towards its total abolition. The organisation is calling for an immediate moratorium on executions in Iran. The UN General Assembly's (UNGA) 62nd session in October 2007 will vote on a resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions, to be introduced as a step towards the abolition of the death penalty. Amnesty International calls on Iran to halt the continuing use of this most extreme penalty, which is a gross violation of human rights and to back this resolution.